Marina Lainsfont clicked her tongue as she tossed Teinford's Layers Of Magic – Theoretical Studies In Phantasmal Alteration away.
Tossed. Like a patron at a bar hurling an empty cup.
That she sullied even lesser works of study was below her. But the tome she threw away had been deserving of far worse. It was shorn of any respect for even the fundamentals of practical magic, and thus deserved its fate as it was promptly left in the freshly trampled mud.
Around her, the sound of an unwieldy cart filled her ears.
The moon hung high in the air, unspoiled by clouds as it shone upon the roads north of Aquina.
To her left and right, verdant pastures relaxed in the late evening breeze as they recovered from another day of being feasted upon by the cattle which littered this land.
“Fine evening, ain't it?” said the carriage master, his grip relaxed as he commandeered two draft horses before him. “Sometimes, what you need in life is the quiet of the rolling fields and the waking crickets both in one. Nights like these make me glad I'm alive.”
Marina snorted.
She had no doubt the carriage master was thrilled with life right now. Especially at the price she was paying him.
Nobody wished to traverse the roads at night without reason. But being paid enough to guarantee a month's worth of hot meals?
Now that was a large bagful of reasons.
Marina, of course, could have made the journey herself. She could have done it in a heartbeat if she wished. But to circumvent distance with magic was never a feat without risk.
Every element that sought to stop a person from merely walking to their destination was instead condensed as a single barrier before her. Each time Marina teleported, realm shifted, gated or portaled, she subjected herself to enough stress that any weaker mage would find themselves collapsed as a smoking husk.
Marina was in a rush. But not in so much that she'd invite needless disaster.
As a result, her plethora of spells to move by magical means were almost always used for instances where either great danger or great need for the bathroom visited her.
And judging by the grating whistling as the carriage master broke into a jovial tune, it was very likely the former.
Still, she begrudgingly accepted it as she leaned against the corner of the open cart. She was being carried away from here. And the price of a tuneless whistle and a bag of crowns was well worth that.
Aquina's library had been a monumental waste of time.
That she'd hoped to find even a single text of use was far too optimistic. She should have abandoned her search at the first indications of disappointment. But even Marina wasn't immune to the hopeful fallacies of others.
The more she failed to find the key she wanted, the less she wanted to abandon even the rags written by morons whose lifetime works weren't worth the time of a summary.
After all, even idiots occasionally said something pronounced. They may never realise it, but Marina did.
It's how she came upon the Withering.
Who knew that interpreting the rambling musings of Talbot's Theorem of Function, 2nd edition with more consideration than he'd ever given his own words would result in a semi-reliable method to harness the vitality of plant life naturally resistant to a host of necromantic affects?
The cost was severe, yes. But no experiment was measured by its financial costs.
Only by time. And success.
And Marina had both.
This new experiment would prove the same. She was only one missing reagent, one component, one catalyst away from success.
She could feel it like the clear breeze against her cheeks.
Though a researcher, she was still prone to intuition like a farmer eyeing the clear sky for rain. She had to be. Magic and alchemy were sciences, requiring trained repetition and careful measurement, but the results were always art. No matter what she did, her work differed at the behest of powers beyond her reach.
And if she were a smirking graduate fresh from kowtowing at the Royal Institute of Mages, she could continue accepting that is the way things were.
That was not her.
Marina Lainsfont had no desire to remain chained to whims beyond her sight.
No … she would control them. She would control herself.
And to do that, she would first control the wildest of magic.
Fire.
Marina adjusted her posture, then produced a shard of the Crown of Winter in her hand.
A familiar surge of satisfaction ran through her as she admired the fragment.
To anyone else, it was a treasure in its own right. But to her, it was a precious reagent. One of several. She had them, either now or close at hand. The fragments she lacked could be found where no one else would search.
And as for the catalyst–
Well.
That was just a matter of studying.
Boomph.
Suddenly, Marina's back straightened against the cart's side.
If she'd been sitting in a chair, it would've toppled to the floor.
For a split second, the fragment in her hand had faintly pulsed, reacting as an arcana crystal towards light. But it wasn't with energy that the shard of the Winter Queen's crown reacted.
It was with magic.
Fae magic.
Her every instinct was drawn towards it. And then towards the faint outline of Aquina Castle, now a dim backdrop as far behind her as the distant hills.
Unaccustomed to her reagents flaring on their own accord, Marina's breathing became sharp as she considered the source of the reaction.
The Crown of Winter.
It'd been activated.
It'd been … worn?
Marina was in disbelief.
When had this started? How had it? All knew that the Crown of Winter wasn't merely a headpiece. It was a snare to entrap the foolish to a prison of madness. Who could possibly be moronic enough to be responsible?
The Duke had made no effort to wear it, betraying her low expectations of him. And even the Snow Dancer for all her unprofessionalism was wise enough to give it distance.
There were few within the castle who would have access to it. And those that did knew the risks. Not all of them. But enough to never consider donning it. And yet still, someone had opted to wear a crown which would never fit any mortal scalp.
Academic curiosity drove Marina's next actions.
She reached for her ember staff, lying down against the cart's floor along with her other possessions. Then, like a butterfly to a flower, she focused her sights on Aquina Castle in the distance.
After the Duke's rare show of prudence, she expected the crown to be used as a political toy. At least until his duchy was utterly destroyed by the Winter Court. What games he planned didn't interest her. Especially as she believed he’d never permit another soul to wield the crown's power while he still had everything to lose.
An unforeseen event.
She would have to see the results. The mage in her demanded it.
Marina stood up.
“Hmm?” The carriage master turned around, his eyes confused. “Miss, what are you doing? That's danger–”
“[Arcane Teleport].”
Raising her staff, she allowed the mana to surge through her.
And then–
Crack.
A snap like a whip sounded around her as her surroundings instantly changed.
The first thing Marina did was inhale a deep breath.
The second thing she did was raise her staff, eyes alert as she studied her surroundings. Not because she now found herself uninvited in the lower floors of Aquina Castle and had to declare herself against knights and guards.
No.
The things that concerned her were not swords and spears.
There were many consequences to forcing herself through the unseen barriers which existed between even the smallest distances. And not all the things which lived in those dark crevasses took to intrusion kindly.
After a moment, she sighed in relief.
And then she found the next thing to concern her.
Snow.
Her shoes were wrapped in it. Having fallen from a height of several inches, she'd prepared herself for the familiar stumble, only to find the padding of soft snow catching her fall instead.
She knew immediately that this wasn't ordinary snow.
Not least because it was found within the corridors of Aquina Castle.
It beat with magic.
Magic of the Fae Realm.
Marina swept up the corridor, ignoring the chill biting against her ankle. She would not melt it, as she knew she could. She had to observe. She had to be silent.
She had to see the results.
What happened to the fools who were inevitably consumed by the Crown of Winter's will? Was it entropy of the spirit? Supplantation of the soul? Rejection of the mind?
A first-hand account of the Crown's workings would be immensely useful in the practical application of her experiment.
Yes, she already had safeguards in place. But to think she could see the Crown’s use in person! It'd been centuries since any of the fae crowns had been worn, and documentation was exceedingly rare.
Ruing the day she replaced her comfortable shopkeeper's uniform with the trappings of a travelling scholar, she pulled her cloak along as the seams became heavy with snow.
Even so, nothing stilled her pace. She swept up the corridor, her eyes taking in the frost creeping across the walls and ceiling–until she entered into a wide hall.
The snow was greater here. Concentrated. The frost giving way to mounds of white clinging to every surface. And each speck contained its own beating heart of magic.
It was cold. And pure.
Fae magic. The magic which Marina would use to conquer the seasons.
Anticipation building within her to what she might see, she hurriedly dragged herself over the mounds of white.
Soon, her breathing became heavy.
Unaccustomed to physical exercise, the sweat which fell from her brows was likely enough to melt the snow where it dripped. But when she reached her destination, she had all the energy required to consider which of the pressing questions she wanted answering first.
In mere moments, she'd witness the closest thing to what she wished to achieve.
And even if madness had taken whichever fool had challenged the Crown of Winter, then perhaps, just perhaps, she'd still be able to glean an answer to the myriad of worldly queries robbing her of sleep each night.
The answers to the fundamentals of magic. The answers to the workings of the stars. The answers to why the pores on her face still sometimes felt oily, even after she'd slept and eaten reasonably well.
Academic curiosity and childish excitement filled her usually reserved heart.
Because when she peeked into the arched doorway leading into a vast chamber of gleaming gold crowns, what she saw was the magnificent sight of–
“–After all, one of us has to carry the Duke to the dungeons. And I'm afraid it won't be me.”
“Because~?”
“Because I lack the upper body strength to carry the frozen statue of an extremely portly man. And also because it's highly undignified for me to need to carry as much as my own cutlery while I have a perfectly capable future handmaiden to do it for me.”
Marina Lainsfont's jaw dropped.
There, just before her, was the sight of a girl and a clockwork doll, kneeling between mounds of coins and treasures.
But not just any girl and clockwork doll.
No, it was them.
The brats who had casually strolled into the middle of her finest incantation and walked away having desecrated it beneath a pile of rubble drawn from a basin filled with arcana crystals.
Why … Why were they here?!
In a single moment, every cog to make up Marina's highly accomplished mind whirred to discover an answer.
She could not.
This … This girl! This wandering daughter of some merchant or baron wielding a sword far above her station! And this clockwork doll, a librarian of a vaunted trove of secrets that she could no longer access.
Why were they in the depths of Aquina Castle?!
Why were they at the site of the Winter Court's pulsing magic?!
The more she looked, the more she was unable to formulate even the most cursory of reasons. And her confusion only grew heavier when she caught sight of the priceless artifact at their feet.
The Crown of Winter, resplendent in transparent and white crystals.
And it was lying on the floor, utterly ignored by the pair who were working out how to rob the place and then transport what appeared to be the frozen statue of Duke Valence.
Marina rubbed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was sorely disappointed to know that she was not hallucinating. Especially as the clockwork doll had caught her peeking past the door.
“I'm not a mage, Coppelia. How am I supposed to cast [Levitate]?”
“Well, I bet Miss Racy Corset could do it.”
“Who? ... Oh, Mary … Miery … Susan. The fugitive mage from Rolstein. Perhaps. But why do you bring her up?”
Marina was aghast.
The … The corset …..............
They'd seen the corset!
The reason she never used her [Force Recall] for any reason other than death! And even then, the results of leaving her garments behind were so fraught with peril that it still resulted in her mental death!
And Susan?!
Who was that?!
Marina's mind went blank from the pair's sudden appearance, more so than the numbing snow could ever do.
She didn't know why they were here. She didn't know why the Crown of Winter was lying discarded on the ground like unwanted trash. And she didn't know why the ruler of the Duchy of Aquina was now encased in magical frost.
But none of that mattered.
She had to explain to the pair before her why she'd been wearing a corset of considerable boldness, and how it had everything to do with the fact that as a busy shopkeeper, alchemist, researcher and mage with goals far beyond the ambitions of any, she had precious little time to consider laundry and more than a few customers who'd donated her the most bizarre and frankly inappropriate gifts for her birthday.
Or–
She could simply murder them.
The fireball left Marina's hand without a second thought.
Marina Lainsfont clicked her tongue as she tossed Teinford's Layers Of Magic – Theoretical Studies In Phantasmal Alteration away.
Tossed. Like a patron at a bar hurling an empty cup.
That she sullied even lesser works of study was below her. But the tome she threw away had been deserving of far worse. It was shorn of any respect for even the fundamentals of practical magic, and thus deserved its fate as it was promptly left in the freshly trampled mud.
Around her, the sound of an unwieldy cart filled her ears.
The moon hung high in the air, unspoiled by clouds as it shone upon the roads north of Aquina.
To her left and right, verdant pastures relaxed in the late evening breeze as they recovered from another day of being feasted upon by the cattle which littered this land.
“Fine evening, ain't it?” said the carriage master, his grip relaxed as he commandeered two draft horses before him. “Sometimes, what you need in life is the quiet of the rolling fields and the waking crickets both in one. Nights like these make me glad I'm alive.”
Marina snorted.
She had no doubt the carriage master was thrilled with life right now. Especially at the price she was paying him.
Nobody wished to traverse the roads at night without reason. But being paid enough to guarantee a month's worth of hot meals?
Now that was a large bagful of reasons.
Marina, of course, could have made the journey herself. She could have done it in a heartbeat if she wished. But to circumvent distance with magic was never a feat without risk.
Every element that sought to stop a person from merely walking to their destination was instead condensed as a single barrier before her. Each time Marina teleported, realm shifted, gated or portaled, she subjected herself to enough stress that any weaker mage would find themselves collapsed as a smoking husk.
Marina was in a rush. But not in so much that she'd invite needless disaster.
As a result, her plethora of spells to move by magical means were almost always used for instances where either great danger or great need for the bathroom visited her.
And judging by the grating whistling as the carriage master broke into a jovial tune, it was very likely the former.
Still, she begrudgingly accepted it as she leaned against the corner of the open cart. She was being carried away from here. And the price of a tuneless whistle and a bag of crowns was well worth that.
Aquina's library had been a monumental waste of time.
That she'd hoped to find even a single text of use was far too optimistic. She should have abandoned her search at the first indications of disappointment. But even Marina wasn't immune to the hopeful fallacies of others.
The more she failed to find the key she wanted, the less she wanted to abandon even the rags written by morons whose lifetime works weren't worth the time of a summary.
After all, even idiots occasionally said something pronounced. They may never realise it, but Marina did.
It's how she came upon the Withering.
Who knew that interpreting the rambling musings of Talbot's Theorem of Function, 2nd edition with more consideration than he'd ever given his own words would result in a semi-reliable method to harness the vitality of plant life naturally resistant to a host of necromantic affects?
The cost was severe, yes. But no experiment was measured by its financial costs.
Only by time. And success.
And Marina had both.
This new experiment would prove the same. She was only one missing reagent, one component, one catalyst away from success.
She could feel it like the clear breeze against her cheeks.
Though a researcher, she was still prone to intuition like a farmer eyeing the clear sky for rain. She had to be. Magic and alchemy were sciences, requiring trained repetition and careful measurement, but the results were always art. No matter what she did, her work differed at the behest of powers beyond her reach.
And if she were a smirking graduate fresh from kowtowing at the Royal Institute of Mages, she could continue accepting that is the way things were.
That was not her.
Marina Lainsfont had no desire to remain chained to whims beyond her sight.
No … she would control them. She would control herself.
And to do that, she would first control the wildest of magic.
Fire.
Marina adjusted her posture, then produced a shard of the Crown of Winter in her hand.
A familiar surge of satisfaction ran through her as she admired the fragment.
To anyone else, it was a treasure in its own right. But to her, it was a precious reagent. One of several. She had them, either now or close at hand. The fragments she lacked could be found where no one else would search.
And as for the catalyst–
Well.
That was just a matter of studying.
Boomph.
Suddenly, Marina's back straightened against the cart's side.
If she'd been sitting in a chair, it would've toppled to the floor.
For a split second, the fragment in her hand had faintly pulsed, reacting as an arcana crystal towards light. But it wasn't with energy that the shard of the Winter Queen's crown reacted.
It was with magic.
Fae magic.
Her every instinct was drawn towards it. And then towards the faint outline of Aquina Castle, now a dim backdrop as far behind her as the distant hills.
Unaccustomed to her reagents flaring on their own accord, Marina's breathing became sharp as she considered the source of the reaction.
The Crown of Winter.
It'd been activated.
It'd been … worn?
Marina was in disbelief.
When had this started? How had it? All knew that the Crown of Winter wasn't merely a headpiece. It was a snare to entrap the foolish to a prison of madness. Who could possibly be moronic enough to be responsible?
The Duke had made no effort to wear it, betraying her low expectations of him. And even the Snow Dancer for all her unprofessionalism was wise enough to give it distance.
There were few within the castle who would have access to it. And those that did knew the risks. Not all of them. But enough to never consider donning it. And yet still, someone had opted to wear a crown which would never fit any mortal scalp.
Academic curiosity drove Marina's next actions.
She reached for her ember staff, lying down against the cart's floor along with her other possessions. Then, like a butterfly to a flower, she focused her sights on Aquina Castle in the distance.
After the Duke's rare show of prudence, she expected the crown to be used as a political toy. At least until his duchy was utterly destroyed by the Winter Court. What games he planned didn't interest her. Especially as she believed he’d never permit another soul to wield the crown's power while he still had everything to lose.
An unforeseen event.
She would have to see the results. The mage in her demanded it.
Marina stood up.
“Hmm?” The carriage master turned around, his eyes confused. “Miss, what are you doing? That's danger–”
“[Arcane Teleport].”
Raising her staff, she allowed the mana to surge through her.
And then–
Crack.
A snap like a whip sounded around her as her surroundings instantly changed.
The first thing Marina did was inhale a deep breath.
The second thing she did was raise her staff, eyes alert as she studied her surroundings. Not because she now found herself uninvited in the lower floors of Aquina Castle and had to declare herself against knights and guards.
No.
The things that concerned her were not swords and spears.
There were many consequences to forcing herself through the unseen barriers which existed between even the smallest distances. And not all the things which lived in those dark crevasses took to intrusion kindly.
After a moment, she sighed in relief.
And then she found the next thing to concern her.
Snow.
Her shoes were wrapped in it. Having fallen from a height of several inches, she'd prepared herself for the familiar stumble, only to find the padding of soft snow catching her fall instead.
She knew immediately that this wasn't ordinary snow.
Not least because it was found within the corridors of Aquina Castle.
It beat with magic.
Magic of the Fae Realm.
Marina swept up the corridor, ignoring the chill biting against her ankle. She would not melt it, as she knew she could. She had to observe. She had to be silent.
She had to see the results.
What happened to the fools who were inevitably consumed by the Crown of Winter's will? Was it entropy of the spirit? Supplantation of the soul? Rejection of the mind?
A first-hand account of the Crown's workings would be immensely useful in the practical application of her experiment.
Yes, she already had safeguards in place. But to think she could see the Crown’s use in person! It'd been centuries since any of the fae crowns had been worn, and documentation was exceedingly rare.
Ruing the day she replaced her comfortable shopkeeper's uniform with the trappings of a travelling scholar, she pulled her cloak along as the seams became heavy with snow.
Even so, nothing stilled her pace. She swept up the corridor, her eyes taking in the frost creeping across the walls and ceiling–until she entered into a wide hall.
The snow was greater here. Concentrated. The frost giving way to mounds of white clinging to every surface. And each speck contained its own beating heart of magic.
It was cold. And pure.
Fae magic. The magic which Marina would use to conquer the seasons.
Anticipation building within her to what she might see, she hurriedly dragged herself over the mounds of white.
Soon, her breathing became heavy.
Unaccustomed to physical exercise, the sweat which fell from her brows was likely enough to melt the snow where it dripped. But when she reached her destination, she had all the energy required to consider which of the pressing questions she wanted answering first.
In mere moments, she'd witness the closest thing to what she wished to achieve.
And even if madness had taken whichever fool had challenged the Crown of Winter, then perhaps, just perhaps, she'd still be able to glean an answer to the myriad of worldly queries robbing her of sleep each night.
The answers to the fundamentals of magic. The answers to the workings of the stars. The answers to why the pores on her face still sometimes felt oily, even after she'd slept and eaten reasonably well.
Academic curiosity and childish excitement filled her usually reserved heart.
Because when she peeked into the arched doorway leading into a vast chamber of gleaming gold crowns, what she saw was the magnificent sight of–
“–After all, one of us has to carry the Duke to the dungeons. And I'm afraid it won't be me.”
“Because~?”
“Because I lack the upper body strength to carry the frozen statue of an extremely portly man. And also because it's highly undignified for me to need to carry as much as my own cutlery while I have a perfectly capable future handmaiden to do it for me.”
Marina Lainsfont's jaw dropped.
There, just before her, was the sight of a girl and a clockwork doll, kneeling between mounds of coins and treasures.
But not just any girl and clockwork doll.
No, it was them.
The brats who had casually strolled into the middle of her finest incantation and walked away having desecrated it beneath a pile of rubble drawn from a basin filled with arcana crystals.
Why … Why were they here?!
In a single moment, every cog to make up Marina's highly accomplished mind whirred to discover an answer.
She could not.
This … This girl! This wandering daughter of some merchant or baron wielding a sword far above her station! And this clockwork doll, a librarian of a vaunted trove of secrets that she could no longer access.
Why were they in the depths of Aquina Castle?!
Why were they at the site of the Winter Court's pulsing magic?!
The more she looked, the more she was unable to formulate even the most cursory of reasons. And her confusion only grew heavier when she caught sight of the priceless artifact at their feet.
The Crown of Winter, resplendent in transparent and white crystals.
And it was lying on the floor, utterly ignored by the pair who were working out how to rob the place and then transport what appeared to be the frozen statue of Duke Valence.
Marina rubbed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was sorely disappointed to know that she was not hallucinating. Especially as the clockwork doll had caught her peeking past the door.
“I'm not a mage, Coppelia. How am I supposed to cast [Levitate]?”
“Well, I bet Miss Racy Corset could do it.”
“Who? ... Oh, Mary … Miery … Susan. The fugitive mage from Rolstein. Perhaps. But why do you bring her up?”
Marina was aghast.
The … The corset …..............
They'd seen the corset!
The reason she never used her [Force Recall] for any reason other than death! And even then, the results of leaving her garments behind were so fraught with peril that it still resulted in her mental death!
And Susan?!
Who was that?!
Marina's mind went blank from the pair's sudden appearance, more so than the numbing snow could ever do.
She didn't know why they were here. She didn't know why the Crown of Winter was lying discarded on the ground like unwanted trash. And she didn't know why the ruler of the Duchy of Aquina was now encased in magical frost.
But none of that mattered.
She had to explain to the pair before her why she'd been wearing a corset of considerable boldness, and how it had everything to do with the fact that as a busy shopkeeper, alchemist, researcher and mage with goals far beyond the ambitions of any, she had precious little time to consider laundry and more than a few customers who'd donated her the most bizarre and frankly inappropriate gifts for her birthday.
Or–
She could simply murder them.
The fireball left Marina's hand without a second thought.
